Transmission Times

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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ffrsqpilot
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Transmission Times

#1

Post by ffrsqpilot »

This has probably been asked and answered in a previous post but I'm not sure where to look. My question has to do with differing transmission times. Every once in awhile (normally during a week day) I will transmit to Salt Lake and it takes up to 8 - 10 minutes. At other times I transmit and it only takes a couple of minutes. It is not the connection time, but rather the actual transmission of data. For example just this week on Tuesday I transmitted some expenses to Salt Lake and once the transmission started the computer said "8 minutes and 30 seconds" remaining. But it was only two checks. What would cause such a large "remaining time" one time and not another.

I am the stake clerk, but I have also noticed it once or twice when I was the ward clerk. Does this have something to do with virus scanning/update during the transmission, or is there some other reason why the "time remaining" has such large transmission times?

Thanks
russellhltn
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#2

Post by russellhltn »

The only one I know for sure is that the computer sends a backup of the data to CHQ once a month. But I didn't think it added 7 minutes worth to the time.
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aebrown
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#3

Post by aebrown »

Pilotfly wrote:This has probably been asked and answered in a previous post but I'm not sure where to look. My question has to do with differing transmission times. Every once in awhile (normally during a week day) I will transmit to Salt Lake and it takes up to 8 - 10 minutes. At other times I transmit and it only takes a couple of minutes. It is not the connection time, but rather the actual transmission of data. For example just this week on Tuesday I transmitted some expenses to Salt Lake and once the transmission started the computer said "8 minutes and 30 seconds" remaining. But it was only two checks. What would cause such a large "remaining time" one time and not another.

I am the stake clerk, but I have also noticed it once or twice when I was the ward clerk. Does this have something to do with virus scanning/update during the transmission, or is there some other reason why the "time remaining" has such large transmission times?

Thanks

There are several reasons for big changes in the amount of data transmitted, which of course affects the transmission time:
  1. Upload of the monthly backup. For stake MLS, this can be fairly big (2-3 Mb), especially if you have a lot of units in your stake.
  2. Download of software updates. These vary in size, but can be 1 Mb or more.
  3. Download of membership data. This can be caused by a refresh of the membership data requested at the stake level, or significant changes at the ward level.
An example of the last one happened in our stake when we asked all the wards to standardize addresses and phone numbers. The next stake MLS transmission included a lot of data from several wards.

Software updates are always accompanied by a message notifying you of the update, so that option would not be a mystery to you.

But note that any or all of these can happen at the same time, so if your luck is bad, these factors could add up to a much longer transmission, particularly on dial-up.
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ffrsqpilot
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Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:51 am
Location: Montrose, Colorado

#4

Post by ffrsqpilot »

From what you describe, I am guessing it must be a monthly backup of data that is taking place. As mentioned, it is fairly easy to see when an MLS upgrade is taking place but the long time I am describing is not a MLS upgrade. Not that this is a big issue, I was just wondering why every so often (and now that you mention it, it seems to be once a month) why the long connection/transmission time.

For your info, we have nine units in our stake but most don't do large changes that I know of so the logical explanation would be the backup to SLC.

Thanks for the clarification.

Jim
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